Victory! Illinois fails to redefine marriage

Those who want to eliminate the institution of marriage (their words, not mine) have their sights set on the heartland of America. After successfully redefining marriage in New England, progressives are taking their fight to the Midwest.

Realizing that they have a pretty low batting average when it comes to redefining marriage at the ballot box, anti-marriage activists are forcing career-conscience state legislators to grant them their wishes.

Although gay marriage is often said to be inevitable, marriage redefiners were handed an embarrassing defeat last week. On Friday, the Illinois General Assembly cancelled a vote on a bill that would have allowed couples anatomically incapable of bearing children to participate in the institution of marriage.

Even though Democrats control the Governor’s office and possess supermajorities in the Illinois state legislature, history seemed to be working against them as they unsuccessfully convinced their fellow Democrats to support the notion of genderless marriage.

Nevertheless, Illinois State Representative Greg Harris – the bill’s lead sponsor – tearfully but confidently assured the public that when the Assembly reconvenes later this year, “equal marriage will…be a reality in Illinois.”

Efforts to redefine marriage along gender neutral lines are also taking root in the state of Michigan. Just last week, Senate Democrats introduced legislation that, according to Democratic State Representative Brandon Dillon – a Catholic – would usher in an era of “marriage equality.”

Although Democrats are in the minority in Michigan’s House and Senate, and won’t be in control of those legislative bodies for the foreseeable future, it’s clear that liberals think Michiganders can be tricked into supporting an institution that necessarily denies children the opportunity of being raised by their mom and dad.

Given the growing animosity towards the traditional understanding of marriage and given the full frontal attacks its opponents are about to unleash on it, I think quoting On Freemasonry and Naturalism, an encyclical written in 1884 by Pope Leo XIII, is most appropriate:

The race of man, after its miserable fall from God…separated into two diverse and opposite parts, of which the one steadfastly contends for truth and virtue, the other for those things which are contrary to virtue and to truth.

The one is the kingdom of God on earth…The other is the kingdom of Satan.

At every period of time each has been in conflict with the other.

At this period, however… [the Church’s enemies]are now boldly rising up against God Himself. They are planning the destruction of holy Church publicly and openly, and this with the set purpose of utterly despoiling the nations of Christendom.

It is Our office to point out the danger, to mark who are the adversaries and to the best of Our power to make head against their plans and devices.

Their ultimate purpose [is]the utter overthrow of that religious and political order of the world which the Christian teaching has produced.

They deny that anything has been taught by God…[they believe]that the multitude should be satiated with boundless license.

[They believe] that marriage belongs to the genus of commercial contracts, which can be rightly revoked by the will of those who made them.

Thus, the time is quickly coming when marriages will be turned into another kind of contract – that is, into changeable and uncertain unions which fancy may join together, and which the same when changed may disunite.

As Pope Leo mentions, we have to continue calling out the adversaries of the Catholic Church. We have to prepare ourselves for their sly and cunning words. We have to be ready when they target Illinois and Michigan later this year. Surely this voting debacle in Illinois is a setback for them, but they won’t give up that easy. And neither can we.

The views expressed here are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of CatholicVote.org

About Author

Stephen Kokx is a freelance writer and adjunct professor of political science living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has previously worked for the Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Peace and Justice.
His writing on religion, politics and Catholic social teaching has appeared in a number of outlets, including Crisis Magazine, The American Thinker and his hometown paper The Grand Rapids Press. He is a member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars and the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, and is a graduate of Aquinas College and Loyola University Chicago. Follow Stephen on twitter @StephenKokx